


Scars and Light

by shamefulshameless



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, POV Kala Dandekar, POV Wolfgang Bogdanow, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-07 06:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11618262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamefulshameless/pseuds/shamefulshameless
Summary: Soulmate AU: Before you meet your soulmate, you feel every injury they receive.Kala grows up covered in scars she doesn't understand. She knows someone is out there, feeling it all firsthand. My poor damaged boy, she thinks. Who will save you?





	1. Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> i don't remember where i heard this prompt, but i just stayed up all night writing it

When it first started happening, Kala's parents lost their minds. Daya's had started much earlier than Kala's, and it was fairly simple. She'd get a paper cut or a bruised knee here or there. Common childhood injuries. That was all to be expected.

Kala's first injury came when she was four. Her family was seated around the dinner table, eating quietly, when she started howling with pain. She curled up in her chair, clutching her chest. Her mother held her tightly and let her scream and cry until it dulled. Kala had a bruise just below her collarbone that didn't fade for weeks. It hadn't even healed before the next one came, a sharp painful pressure above her elbow.

Her injuries were constant, with varying degrees of seriousness. Every day she would feel something new. Her neck, her tailbone, her scalp, her eye. Most days the skin didn't break; when it did, it was usually shallow scrapes. A narrow cut appeared on her cheekbone one day, Kala examined it for minutes on end. More stinging cuts like this started appearing with higher frequency as time went by.

Her parents fretted constantly. The first time she broke a bone- her wrist- they put their foot down. They dragged her to the doctor, demanded he find a way to cut off the connection. The doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, that is not possible. If it was, I doubt you'd see anyone still letting their child receive the injuries."

Her parents begged and begged, but were still met with the same answer. Kala, sitting on the examiner's table, didn't listen. She ran her small fingers over the cast that had just been plastered around her wrist. The doctor spun his chair around, cutting her parents off mid-sentence. "Kala? Do you understand what is happening to you?" he asked gently.

Kala met his eyes, and sheepishly shook her head.

"You know about soulmates, Kala?"

She nodded.

"Do you know how they are connected?"

Again, she shook her head no. Her parents had tried to explain it to her once, but the story had frightened her. It hadn't sounded romantic, not one bit. "Well," the doctor said evenly, "We all have a soulmate, the person we are to spend our lives with. Before we meet them, though, we feel their pain. When you get these sudden aches or bruises or cuts, you get them because your soulmate is getting them, too."

"How?" she asked.

The doctor sighed. "There is no way to be sure. But if you were to trip right now and cut your finger, that person, where ever they may be, would feel that pain. Not quite as badly, but they would feel it. They would have a scar identical to yours. Do you understand?"

"Does that mean that everything that has been happening to me... he feels, but worse?"

The doctor looked warily to her parents. "Yes."

 

* * *

 

They spent the next few years frantically trying and failing to protect her. By the time she was eight, she was used to the constant barrage. It was almost part of her daily routine. She woke up, went to school, came home, and got the wind knocked out of her by some phantom force. Her mother and father never settled into it. They endlessly searched for ways to stop her connection to her soulmate, to spare their little girl from her sixth broken finger in four years.

But Kala never felt that way, exactly. She didn't like it, of course. She hated feeling this way all the time. She didn't remember what her skin looked like before the differently shaped scars had found their way across it. She didn't remember what it was like to be completely comfortable, even with something as simple as laying in bed. She had to shift every night just to find a position that didn't put pressure on a bruise she hadn't known she had.

But mostly she worried about her soulmate.

She wondered about him often. Not just his identity. How was he amassing all of these injuries, where did they come from? Was he a fighter? Was he a bully? Was he one of the bullied?

Kala felt horrible for him, no matter what. A wave of protectiveness washed over her every time a new wound materialized. Her poor damaged boy, she would think.

She made sure never to injure herself directly. She avoided sharp table corners and never went outside barefoot. She steered clear of any potentially painful situation, for him. He didn't deserve this, she could feel it. If it truly was worse for him, if the never ending torture she endured was just echoes of his, then he didn't need anything else to add to the agony. If she couldn't help him, the least she could do was spare him a stubbed toe.

Years passed. Kala was thirteen when she noticed she hadn't had an injury in two weeks. The longest she'd ever gone without one. She didn't know what to make of it. Her confusion only grew when no new blows came. In fact, after that, her injuries stopped altogether.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She still had more than most, but compared to how it used to be, it was nothing. Now her biggest issues were bruises on the jaw, and a few blisters on her fingers. Whatever had happened, however her soul mate had escaped his pain, she smiled for him.

Her old scars refused to heal. Soul scars don't fade, she was told. Kala tried her best to ignore the stares she attracted all through school. She kept her head down at university. She had trouble making friends, looking as damaged as she did. Her face was mostly clear, but if she rolled up her sleeves or wore a short dress, she drew snide comments and sideways looks. Her scars, hundreds of tiny angular nicks, raised above her flesh, weren't a gorgeous sight. Best to wear sweaters and keep it all to herself.

Some part of her foolishly expected to find him at university. Maybe he was brought up by scientists, and all his injuries were daring lab experiments gone wrong. It was a ridiculous fantasy.

Right before she graduated, she slipped up and burned a patch of skin on the inside of her forearm during a lab. Badly. It was the worst firsthand injury she had ever received, a second degree burn. The doctor in the infirmary marveled at her calm. In truth, she was more than accustomed to worse, even after all these years. She hoped her soulmate didn't burn too bad.

He wouldn't be as used to her pain as she was to his.

 

* * *

 

 

She is four years out of university when she meets Rajan. He takes an instant liking to her, shirking the other girls in the company who want him desperately. Kala is flattered by the attention, she won't deny. He sends her flowers on her birthday, and she finally agrees to a date.

The date is a casual dinner, so she has an excuse to wear long sleeves and pants. Rajan wears short sleeves, and Kala notices his smooth skin right away. His lack of scars. _Of course it's not him_ , she thinks. _What did I expect?_

But he's nice, and he's handsome and he has a lot of influence. She's not looking for anything serious. She's not like Daya, who has been traveling the whole of India looking for someone with an acne scar next to their right shoulder blade that perfectly matches hers. Kala is content with pursuing her career. She dates Rajan because her family adores him, and he adores her. She doesn't have a good enough reason to hurt them all and end it, she thinks.

It stays simple until he proposes. At this point, he knows the universe has not picked him for her. He has seen her marred flesh, and decided it doesn't matter that fate is against them. For him it makes her all the more enticing. He tells her so when he asks.

Kala hasn't thought of her soulmate in a while. But looking at Rajan, so earnest while he waits for an answer, and seeing her father dance around the house with glee, she can't help but think of him now, her damaged boy. She had tried her best to protect him as a child. But he had learned, somewhere along the way, how to protect himself.

She says yes. She doesn't know why. She regrets it.

The wedding doesn't take nearly long enough to plan. When Rajan tells her how lavish he wishes it all to be, she's relieved. It sounds like it should be ages away, but it's not. Mere months.

Kala can't think of a way out. She prays to Ganesha to give her guidance, but receives no answer.

The wedding is two weeks away when something rattles her. She sits up straight in bed, awoken by a harsh jab to her right thumb. She examines it, to find a purple bruise springing up beneath the nail. It's an ugly thing, spreading from her cuticle to halfway up her thumbnail. It throbs dully without stopping. She knows this random injury holds no cosmic significance, but it serves as a reminder all day: he's out there. You're marrying _Rajan_.

She gets off work at the same time as her fiancé, but today she tells him to leave without her. She tells him she has to stay a bit later than usual. When she's sure he's gone, she walks home. The Rasal building is a few miles from her house, but she doesn't mind. She badly needs to clear her head, or all this stress might put her in her grave.

Kala breathes in the harsh city air. By the time she's six blocks from the Rasal building, she's already parched. She heads into the next coffee shop she sees. The line is long, but her walk the rest of the way home is longer. She rethinks her impulsive little escape plan. Maybe she'll get a cab after she finishes her chai. Reluctantly, she joins the back of the line, behind a tourist with his head down.

The line crawls. Kala considers leaving three times before something catches her eye. The tourist takes his hand from his front pocket and scratches the back of his head, for just a moment. His hand is out of view a second later, but Kala is sure she saw a flash of purple.

Kala slowly rises to her tiptoes, and cranes her neck in hopes of seeing his hand again. He's looking at his phone, his thumb scrolling up and down the screen and- yes.

His nail is brilliantly, terrifyingly bruised. Kala shoots back down off her toes. She feels dizzy. It could be a coincidence, of course. The man is wearing long sleeves, but if she's right- she doesn't know whether or not she wants to be- he should have a pale crescent shaped nick below his left ear. It's one of her deepest scars.

Kala takes a tiny step forward, and looks as closely as she dares. Too close- the man spins his head around. He doesn't say anything, just looks at her as Kala takes an awkward step back. He knits his brows together and turns back to face the other way.

His eyes are blue, how are they so blue.

She feels more than dizzy. She's positive she saw the scar below his ear. Kala is in a daze, taking in every inch of the back of him, her soulmate. Her damaged boy, standing in front of her. She'd pictured someone different. Someone small and weak. (Someone Indian.)

When he reaches the counter, she listens desperately to hear his voice. It's softer than she'd expected, thickly accented. European, definitely.

She is so lost in her own thoughts, it doesn't occur to her that she has to order something until the woman urges her forward. Kala orders a cup of water. She doesn't want to be waiting around for Chai.

Not if she's going to follow him out of here.

The man picks up his small black coffee and walks briskly through the doors. Kala is careful to stay several paces behind. She isn't sure what her plan is. Stop him, maybe?

He walks south for three blocks, then takes a sharp turn. Kala stays close, but not too close. The man turns several more times, until he is essentially going the same way as before. Maybe he's lost. That could be an icebreaker. Hello sir, are you lost and also, did you step on a nail when you were nine?

She follows him and follows him, she watches him finish his coffee and throw the cup away.

He walks two more blocks, and turns into a grocery store. Kala heads in after him. (Hello sir, have you tried this brand of potato and also, how did you get teeth marks on your ankle?)

She walks through the doors, but doesn't see him anywhere. She walks along the shelves, looking down each one. When he's not in the last aisle, she goes down to check the other side. She turns and jumps.

He's standing inches from her, glaring down accusingly. "What do you want?" he hisses. He uses English. His eyes are hard, full of fury.

"Wh- I-" Kala stammers for a few seconds. "I'm sorry, I-"

He jabs a finger into her shoulder, forces her to take a step back. "Who do you work for? Huh? Sergei? How does he know I'm here? If you don't fucking tell me right now-"

Kala doesn't fear him. She pushes his hand away. "I don't work for anyone."

The man smirks cruelly. "Oh? So you followed me for what? For fun?"

Kala can't form the words. Looking at him is like looking down the barrel of a gun. "For this," she musters. She lifts her thumb to his face. He stares at it, puzzled, until she sees a click of recognition in his eyes. "I was behind you when you were getting coffee. I'm not sure why I didn't say anything."

She lowers her hand. The man's expression has entirely changed. All his fierceness is dissolved, replaced by what looks to Kala to be fear. Horrible, nightmarish fear. He stays silent.

"I'm Kala," she says. He remains frozen, still as an insect fossilized in amber. "You are...?" Kala urges him along.

The man flinches. "Wolfgang," he chokes. He offers a hand for her to shake.

Kala asks him if he wants to find somewhere to talk, at which he nods blankly.

 

 

Ten minutes later, they are on the bridge, looking out over the water. He's from Berlin, she learns. A locksmith, he'd come to Mumbai to get away from his complicated family. "Why Mumbai?" she wonders.

He shrugs. "Seemed like the last place they'd think to look."

The sun is growing low in the sky. Kala watches brilliant pinks reflect off Wolfgang's face as he simply watches the water in front of him, oblivious. "What about you?" he asks without turning to her. "You're from Bombay?"

Kala nods, tells him about her father's restaurant, which morphs into telling him about her degree, which morphs into telling him about her job, and her religion. He seems lost as to how she could be a devout scientist. Kala challenges him with the complexities of quantum physics, and gravity. She almost thinks he wants to move closer to her, but he doesn't. He opens up to her, too, bit by bit. He doesn't talk about his family, but she learns about his friend, their bond from childhood. They talk until all the safe topics are gone.

They fall into silence. Kala's phone beeps in her pocket. A text from Rajan pops up, asking her if she got home safely. She glances to Wolfgang, observing her with curiosity, and writes back that yes, she has. She turns the ringer off and returns it her pocket. Kala realizes that from the moment she spotted Wolfgang's thumb, Rajan hasn't crossed her mind once.

She clears her throat, uncomfortably. Wolfgang must pick up on her discomfort, because he blurts, "I slammed it in a car door this morning."

"Sorry?"

"Today is my first day here. I got out of the taxi from the airport and I fucking slammed my thumb in the door. That's why you... that's where that came from."

Kala laughs. "Are you apologizing?"

Wolfgang smirks, entirely free of malice this time. "Yes," he chuckles, "Why not?"

"As long as we're on the topic, you might also want to apologize for threatening me in the store," she teases.

Wolfgang looks shocked. "C'mon now. You can't blame me, a mysterious woman was following me down the street. I was scared for my life," he smiles. She hasn't seen him grin like this. His eyes crinkle up; she wants to see him do this more. She finds herself surprised at how much she wants to see this smile more and more and more. But the grin fades as quickly as it came.

Wolfgang's face grows dark. His eyes are focused on something. She follows his gaze to where her sweater has slipped off her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed, but he had. He takes a tiny step forward, he gulps. "That's mine," he breathes.

She isn't sure what he's referring to, until he twists his own shoulder, an action so small she doubts he knows he does it. She has a scar there. It's small, no longer than the width of her index finger. She knows this because when it first appeared, she measured it that way. "That's mine," he repeats, "isn't it?"

Kala nods. Wolfgang looks horrified. "I don't- have that anymore. It went away. It's old. It..." he clenches his jaw. "Do you have all of them?"

She feels she doesn't have to answer. She's right. Wolfgang asks her wordlessly for permission, hovering his fingers around the bottom of her sleeve. She nods again.

He gingerly pulls back the fabric, as if the wounds are still open. His eyes widen at the sight, the sheer number of them. He takes it in silently. She can see him go through, in his head, every injury he's ever gotten, where they were. She can see him try to translate them all onto her body. Normal scars fade. Soul scars don't.

He grimaces. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't realize." He has anguish in his voice. He sounds broken. "You didn't do anything. You don't deserve this."

Kala doesn't stop her free hand from tilting his chin up to face her. She sees him. "I always wondered about you," she whispers. "I worried and worried. I was so scared for you. I wanted to know who was hurting a child like this. I couldn't understand it."

Wolfgang tries to avert his eyes again, but Kala doesn't let him. She cups her hands on either side of his head. Her palms are on his cheeks. She hadn't known him this morning. "The gods chose this, not you. Do not apologize. You didn't hurt me, Wolfgang."

He brings his hands to her wrists. "Yes. I did," he insists. " _He_ did, I-" he stops himself. He pulls her hands down, steps away from her.

"Who?" she asks. "Who hurt me? Who hurt you?"

He shakes his head, studies his own shoes.

It clicks for her, step by step:

The injuries only ever came at night. The little cuts, sharp and stinging. Like a hand with a ring coming down. Her damaged boy, and his complicated family. So complicated he hid from them on another continent.

"Your father?" she dares to ask. Wolfgang doesn't look up, but he hums his assent. "Where is he now?" she adds. "Is he looking for you?"

"He died. A long time ago."

"...One day it all just stopped."

"Right," he laughs with no humor. "No love lost." Kala moves closer to him. "You can let go, then," she offers.

Wolfgang rocks back and forth on his heels. "No. Especially not now. I've got the living, breathing proof of him standing right here, don't I?" He gestures to her.

Kala doesn't know what to say to him. Whatever wound she has reopened, she doesn't know how to close it. She doesn't even know Wolfgang, for gods' sake.

She doesn't try to understand. Instead she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him into a tight embrace. He doesn't respond at first. Then he slowly hugs her waist, until they're flush against each other. She buries her head in the crook of his neck and inhales.

She _breathes_.

They stay like that for a while, neither moving or speaking. Neither taking any note of the passers by, looking at them quizzically. Kala feels light expand out from where his hands rest on her waist, she feels it in her toes and her fingers. The sensation leaves her breathless.

He must feel it too. He must. This must be what happens when you find them. She draws her head back to look him in the eye. He's leaning in, she's letting him. When he kisses her, it's unlike anything she's ever known. The stories they told in school would tell of a prince and princess- soulmates. When they kiss at the end of the story, she remembers, all the flowers in the kingdoms bloom. The evil become good, and the good become heroes.

She has no way of knowing if flowers are blooming, or if anyone other than the two of them are changing. She is sure they aren't heroes. But when their lips part, she knows a seismic shift in the earth. A curse being lifted, perhaps.

Her forehead leans against his.

"Are you damaged?" she asks.

"Are you engaged?" he replies.

She jumps. _What?_ He sounds almost smug when he says it. Almost sarcastic, almost gloating. How someone can sound so cocky and so defeated at the same time she doesn't know. "What?" She leans her head away from him.

"You're wearing a ring, are you engaged?" he says it again. "I saw it in the store. I said nothing because... I don't want my destined person to be engaged." He now sounds like he's giving a confession.

Kala breaks. She tells him about Rajan. Her lovely fiancé, who knows he isn't her godsend but wants her anyway. She lets Wolfgang in on all of it, and ends with the cold hard fact of her wedding in two weeks' time. "I decided to walk home today so I could get my mind off of it. It worked, I suppose."

Wolfgang, who has stayed silent through her sorry tale, speaks solemnly. "So. None of this means anything, anyway. This is all for nothing."

Kala begins to protest, but he's already made up his mind. "You aren't giving up your life for me. We don't know each other-"

"That is not true and you know it-"

" _We don't know each other._ I've always doubted that soul shit. I knew there was someone. But I always thought there would be some way I couldn't be with them. I was right," his tone is resigned. "This sort of thing doesn't happen to me."

Kala wishes now more than ever that she knew what to say around this man. In her head she can hear the words she could say to make him stay with her, but they must be in a language she doesn't know, because they aren't translating. She can't access them. "No, no," she starts, but can't finish. "You can't, you can't. I- now that..." she trails off. She prays he knows what she is trying to tell him. If he does, it doesn't change his decision. "You should stay with him," he says, "You have to."

How dare he tell her that. "I am in charge of my life, I can do what I please with it."

His hands are in his pockets now. He's detaching. How had this gone so wrong so quickly?

"No, you can't. If you could, then you would have said no to him. Am I wrong?"

"Yes! I had no reason to say no-"

"But you didn't love him- that's not a reason?"

"No it isn't; not here. But if I said to them that I had found you, they would understand. They would know."

He smiles. Not the smile she likes on him. The other one, the heartless one. "I'm sure they would love to meet the man who nearly killed their daughter every day."

"That wasn't you," she insists, but knows by now he doesn't believe that.

Now she feels she has but one choice. She makes a desperate plea, to her damaged boy, the random stranger in a coffee shop. "Maybe I have been looking for a reason to call the wedding off. And this is Ganesha, giving me the best possible reason."

His gaze says what he thinks of that- he thinks gods don't give a shit.

Kala goes on, "Because right now, I'm confused about... everything. But I know I don't want to marry him. I know that to be true."

She pulls his arm to her, and boldly rolls up the sleeve of his shirt. Sure enough, on the inside of his arm is a raised, angry patch of skin. Where she'd burned herself at university.

"This is true." With that, she pulls him down for another kiss. Rougher, more urgent this time.

When she opens her eyes, he is boring holes into her. He looks at her so intensely she thinks she may fall backwards with the weight of it. Then, so subtly she almost misses it, he nods.

 

* * *

 

  
She tells her parents about him the next morning. They don't understand at first. They want to know what happened to him as a child to hurt their darling daughter so. She tells them the short version. They feel pity for the poor damaged boy. They understand what soulmate means. They understand why she does what she does next.

She calls off the wedding. Rajan doesn't take it well at first. He thought they had agreed that not being soulmates didn't matter. Kala tries to capture in mere words how it feels to find it, and tells Rajan he deserves to find the girl with his wounds.

 

* * *

 

He takes weeks to confess to her that he isn't a locksmith, not really. She defies his expectations when she doesn't leave him. Those are always his expectations, she learns. He comes home expecting her gone. She's always there.

  
He never stops feeling responsible for her scars. He tells her otherwise, but she knows it's a lie. He is a horrible liar. She shares with him the lengths she went to as a child, in fruitless attempts to protect him. She tells him in bed one night about himself. Her damaged boy. She holds him tightly, closes her eyes as he runs his fingers delicately across a scar on her ribcage.

"We are both damaged, then," he murmurs after a long while. He is so quiet she almost doesn't hear him over the din of the Parisian street below.

"Perhaps."

He kisses her. She swears she feels flowers bloom.

 

 

 

 


	2. Listening

Truthfully, he never thinks much about her.

His mother loves the concept, of two people feeling as one, no matter how far apart they may be. His mother is a romantic.

All the scars she accrued must be hell for whoever is feeling them out there, because it isn't Anton. His parents are far from soulmates.

None of what he does to her comes back to him. He feels none of it. He has no consequences, no punishments. No justice.

His father's clear skin is what teaches Wolfgang that justice is an illusion.

Sometimes when his mother looks over Wolfgang's bruises and cuts, she laments for his soulmate, to herself, in Russian. That poor girl. What is he doing to her. That poor, poor girl.

Wolfgang doesn't care much about some girl somewhere. He's the one that faces this. Not her.

When he's thirteen, his father kills his mother. Wolfgang isn't around to see it, the police rule it a suicide. But he knows. He knows what happened, no matter what everyone tells him.

Six days after that, he kills his father.

He hates living with his uncle, he hates his cousin. But he rejoices, in some small way. His freedom. He looks in the bathroom mirror, at the cigar burn on his shoulder that has now almost entirely healed. No new injuries to speak of. He doesn't think about her when he revels in this.

He and Felix are good pickpockets. Felix is better than he is, but Wolfgang can pick any lock under the sun by the time he's sixteen. They lead a life of petty crime. They steal from cars, from ATMs, from people. They get into fistfights with boys bigger than them.

Wolfgang is satisfied with his life. He isn't happy- that isn't something he knows how to be- but he's satisfied. Aspects of his existence are genuinely good, for once.

He gets his own apartment, works with Felix at his shop. They graduate to slightly larger crimes. He's twenty two.

He's walking home from the liquor store when a searing pain shoots through his arm. He drops his bag, and the bottles break. Vodka spills across the sidewalk. Wolfgang yanks up his sleeve to see a raw, fresh burn wound screaming up at him. He runs the rest of the way home, abandoning the shattered glass and growing puddle of booze at his feet.

He hobbles through the door to his apartment, clutching his arm. He's never had a serious burn before, never one this big, and he doesn't know what to do. He paces blindly for a minute before calling Felix.

Felix has the common sense to look it up on his phone. Wolfgang runs his arm under cold water until his friend brings antibiotic cream and a bandage.

As soon as he's wrapped up and the two of them have slumped onto the couch, Felix says, "I've never heard you freak out like that over an injury, Wolfie. Made it sound like you were dying or some shit. I mean, it's just a soul thing. We're all used to them by now."

"I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

Wolfgang realizes that maybe it isn't normal, how little he feels from his soulmate. How in his whole life, this is the worst it's been. He's gotten a few little bruises and scrapes, but nothing serious, ever. He rarely even thinks about her. He tells Felix that he's sure that happens to people all the time. Felix tells him no. It doesn't.

"Everyone has to deal with horrible bullshit constantly from their person. I mean, I think mine must be the clumsiest woman alive. She cuts her fingers to pieces, it's ridiculous. She's like, an amateur cook or something; that's the only way to explain it. You really don't have to deal with that sort of thing?" he shows Wolfgang his scarred hands. Wolfgang shakes his head no. "Guess I got lucky."

It's a new perspective. He didn't think about his soulmate, because he never needed to. Most people go through life constantly yearning for them, but he never has. Maybe that's why- because she's thoroughly and completely safe, wherever she is. Sort of.

He feels a flash of guilt. She must be tortured, with the kind of life he leads. As the burn on his arm blisters and scabs, he thinks about her more. He believes, deep down, that even if he were to meet her, they wouldn't be together. It seems preposterous to him; he's never had a real relationship. He's not interested in one, much less with a stranger. He hears stories of people seeing their scars on their soulmates and running into each other's arms, sure without speaking to them that they're in love. It's nonsense.

Wolfgang loves Felix. He doesn't love anyone else. He loves Felix because Felix is his brother, he's been with him through the worst parts of his life. He'd be dead without him. Felix is family.

The idea that someone could waltz in and he'd feel that for them, immediately, is unappealing to him. Especially a romantic partner.

Predestination is bullshit. His parents taught him that.

He knows, though, that he isn't going to have a happy ending. He will die young. Most likely in some blaze of glory, a thousand bullets to the chest. He'll try to keep Felix out of it, but if the last decade has been any indication, he will die next to him. It isn't predestination. It's just what will be. A soulmate doesn't fit into that future.

As he grows used to the burn scar, the idea of her fades away. He goes back to his life. He's always aware of her existence, but doesn't waste his time on dreams.

When Felix comes to him with an idea, an idea so stupid it just might work, he's quick to agree. If they pulled this off, he'd be able to get back at his father and Steiner in one go. They prepare for months, and when the big night arrives, they come away victorious. They sell half the diamonds to a little old man called Abraham, who talks about the Holocaust and his mother and never shuts up. He mumbles about soulmates, too, but Wolfgang is too focused on the rocks in his hand to pay attention.

When Felix is shot, Wolfgang's world grinds to a halt. He spends all his time in the hospital, torturing himself over his foolishness. They should have seen this coming. The nurse is in and out. She tuts about how she worries for Felix's soulmate. Probably in a coma someplace else.

Wolfgang wants her to shut up and leave. He doesn't care, he doesn't care, he just wants his brother back. He doesn't care about people he doesn't know, why does everyone else seem to, blindly? When she finally leaves he sighs a breath of relief. It doesn't last long, because Sergei bursts in soon after. He threatens Wolfgang; a day later his son does the same.

Wolfgang formulates a plan. It involves a gun duct taped under his car and a rocket launcher hidden in his trunk. He's about to set up the meeting when he changes his mind. Instead, he does something he's never done before.

He runs.

He sets Felix up in a private hospital, under the name 'Conan'. The doctor has sworn to let him know if anything happens. Wolfgang wants to find the most random place he can, where no one would think to look for him. It has to be somewhere where he knows no one, and no one knows him. They would expect him in America, in Russia. He knows the countries where Sergei has contacts, the list being so long that his choices narrow considerably.

He settles finally on India. Mumbai, why not, he thinks. He's always liked Indian food.

He's on the next flight, under a fake name, with a fake ID, a fake passport. His chest doesn't unclench until the wheels of the plane have lifted.

It's early in Mumbai. He's tired, he couldn't sleep on the plane. He exchanges some of his euros into rupees at the airport. He didn't bring a lot of money, just enough of the diamond loot to not attract suspicion.

He gets a taxi to his hotel, a shithole, but it'll do until he finds someplace to rent. Wolfgang isn't sure how long he'll be in the city. At least a few months, maybe longer, if he likes it. So far he does. He likes chaos. Mumbai is full of it.

He pays the driver and gets out of the cab, only to slam the door on his thumb. He shouts, which attracts stares. By the time he's unpacked his one small bag, it's already bruised. Not a great start to his new life as a drifter.

Wolfgang aimlessly walks around the city all day. He stands out here, a fact he hadn't considered. He prefers to blend in. Being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed European in the middle of Bombay doesn't lend itself well to that preference.

Still, he truly enjoys what he sees of the new city. He likes the food, the atmosphere, the people. People are direct here, the drivers are gruff and the men aren't afraid to bump your shoulder when they pass you on a narrow sidewalk.

Wolfgang sees a coffee shop that looks decent. He walks in, gets in line. The line is long, but he has nothing but time on his hands. He waits for a minute, and lets his thoughts wander back to Felix. He scratches the back of his neck, like he does when he thinks.

To put his mind at ease, he pulls out his phone to check for any updates from the doctor. Nothing.

Suddenly he feels a presence at his shoulder. He turns to see a frightened looking woman, hurriedly taking a step back from him. Wolfgang doesn't pay her any mind. He orders his coffee, pays for it, and leaves.

He gets about twenty feet from the coffee shop and realizes he's being followed. The same woman who'd been peeking over his shoulder. He tells himself to calm down, it's probably a coincidence. He takes a few abrupt turns. He doesn't shake her.

He goes through all his enemies in his head. He'd fled Germany to get away from Sergei, so it would make sense that the woman works for him. She probably wants to kill him, or take him prisoner and drag him back to Berlin to face his uncle and cousin. The rest of the diamonds are currently at the bottom of the Spree. If they find that out, they won't be thrilled with him.

Wolfgang feels his chest clench up again. How had they even found him? He'd been so careful, he'd done everything right. He ducks into a grocery store, wildly coming up with a course of action. If the woman was armed, she couldn't attack him here, she'd have to wait for them to be in private. Right? Still, as he listens for her footsteps drawing nearer, he searches the shelves surrounding him for anything he can use as a weapon, if it comes to that.

He waits for her to come down the aisle, and he pounces. "What do you want?" he hisses at her. She looks startled, she takes a step back. She seems genuinely confused as she looks for an answer, but Wolfgang isn't fooled by that. It's a classic move, especially by killers that happen to be beautiful women.

"Who do you work for?" he demands, prodding her back with a finger. "Sergei? How does he know I'm here?" She still doesn't reply. "If you don't fucking tell me right now-" She bats his hand away. Wolfgang has a funny feeling in his stomach. He doesn't recognize it.

"I don't work for anyone."

Wolfgang is tired of this. There is something very strange about this woman; there's no way she doesn't work for anyone. He knows how to read people, and he's getting a different feeling from her than he's ever gotten from anyone. He's suspicious. If she's going to attack him, she should get on with it. "Oh?" he says, "So you followed me for what? For fun?"

She seems to gather herself, and raises her fist. Wolfgang expects a punch, sets his jaw, but instead sees her hand hovering inches from his face. "For this." She doesn't any anything else.

Wolfgang doesn't know what he's supposed to be looking at. Her thumb was bruised, was that it? He doesn't understand. And then he does.

She says something else, but it's muffled by the roaring in his ears. He feels like he's just been dunked into a pool of ice water. There's a wrenching pull in his guts, not unlike when he'd watched Felix get blown away. Blood and glass flying everywhere, complete disarray. Not unlike that at all.

Wolfgang hates feeling afraid. He isn't used to it. This isn't a reasonable fear, either. It's just a girl. A girl who doesn't look nearly as scared as he is.

He hopes she can't see him drowning. "I'm Kala." Wolfgang hardly registers that he's supposed to say something back. Kala. It's definitely her, he knows it. He's spent his whole life circumventing her. He comes to India to escape his troubles, and of course a new one smacks him in the face. A worse one. Worse because her eyes are brown, and her hair is curly, and she's so close she might as well be wearing his skin. He's feeling what his mother always dreamed of feeling. The way she described it, how it was written in her tacky books.

"You are...?"

Oh, right. Fuck.

"Wolfgang." He dumbly sticks out a hand. She shakes, and he notices their two thumbs side by side, with matching bruises. He also can't help but notice her other hand. Namely, the massive engagement ring glittering on her finger. Typical, he thinks. Obviously mine is engaged, what did I expect? Something easy? She wonders if they can talk, somewhere else. He finds himself ignoring the ring. He's sure he must be nodding. He pushes the diamond out of his mind.

He hates diamonds, he decides. Diamonds have really had a habit of fucking up his life lately.

  
She takes him to a bridge overlooking the water. He learns on the walk there that she's a scientist, working for a large pharmaceutical company. He tells her only that he's a locksmith. Somehow, "I'm a gangster on the lam" seems like a third date conversation.

Of course, he's not on a date with the engaged stranger who happens to be his soulmate. That would be ridiculous.

When she asks why he came to Bombay, he sticks to the basics. He needed to get away from a complicated family. That's all. He pivots to her.

She tells him about her life. She sounds nearly apologetic as she does, as if she's boring him. She talks about her father's restaurant, her religion, everything with such passion. Wolfgang didn't know it was possible to be so passionate about things so small. Her eyes light up when he challenges her on her religion. She starts talking about quantum physics. So she's a genius, too, it doesn't take him long to figure out.

As he listens to her, he can't help but wonder what kind of cosmically massive mistake the universe must have made to place him with her. She is on a different level than him, on everything. It's a wonder her feet can even touch the ground.

Kala asks him about his life, and it's harder to avoid it this time. He tells her about Felix. She's too easy to talk to, it's dangerous. Even when they stop talking, he catches himself looking at her as she stares out at the water.

Whatever the fuck is happening to him, he doesn't like it.

Her phone rings. She reads the message on the screen with a solemn look on her face. She silences her phone and shoves it back in her pocket, frowning.

A voice in Wolfgang's head tells him to not let her do that. Don't let her frown.

"I slammed it in a car door this morning," he spits. He's able to wipe the frown off her face. She even laughs when he explains how he got the bruise.

He's teasing her. "-I was scared for my life," he's saying. She's smiling, and he's taking that in as best he can. Then he sees it. A bit of her shoulder has been exposed, and a scar is poking through. He knows that scar, he'd know it anywhere. "That's mine."

That shouldn't be there, he thinks as he grows closer. He was barely thirteen when he'd gotten it. He'd tried to yell back at his father, just once. It had ended with a fat cigar being put out on his skin. Right there. But that scar is long gone, no trace of it exists. Or so he thought. He tells her that much.

A terrible thought dawns. He thinks back to all the things his skin has been put through.

He'd never been interested in soulmates. He'd never payed close enough attention to the people who cared, either. But if she had that....

When he lifts her sleeve his heart plummets. Some of them he can place- that's from a primary school bully, digging his fingernails into my arm, that's from broken glass in a window during a heist- and some of them are entirely forgotten to him. He hears his own voice apologizing, over and over.

She's holding his face. "I always wondered about you," she whispers. "I worried and worried. I was so scared for you. I wanted to know who was hurting a child like this. I couldn't understand it."

How can he tell her that he never thought of her back? That he didn't worry, he didn't waste time on her? That it should have been _him_ protecting _her_ from his life, and not the other way around, that this was a sign for her to walk the other way, to stay far away from him.

Kala doesn't let him look away from her. He shuts his eyes for a moment, involuntarily. Her hands are too warm against his cheeks, he wants to sink into them. But how can he, when he can feel a scar jutting out from her palm- a scar he gave her. She dares to tell him that he never hurt her.

It's such bullshit, he slips up and mentions his father. He hopes she doesn't catch it, but she does. She's too smart not to. She presses, until she figures it out for herself.

"Your father?"

He confirms her suspicions. She asks, "Where is he now? Is he looking for you?"

"He died. A long time ago."

She nods. "...One day it all just stopped."

"Right. No love lost." He feels a laugh bubble up in his throat. A horrible instinct tells him to confess to her, tell her what he did. Why his father stopped hurting them.

She's too understanding. It's unsettling. "You can let go, then," she says.

"No," he replies, "especially not now." He doesn't mean to say it out loud, but-

"I've got the living, breathing proof of him standing right here, don't I?"

Suddenly, she has her arms around his neck, clutching him tightly to her. Wolfgang doesn't know what to do. His arms find their way to her waist, without him telling them to. He really has lost control. She's everywhere. It's intoxicating, this feeling of safety. He is unprepared for safety.

She pulls away first. Wolfgang sees an opportunity to kiss her that he shouldn't take, and he takes it.

His mind goes entirely blank, until, as they break apart, he remembers a diamond.

She asks him an odd question, one he doesn't understand. "Are you damaged?"

"Are you engaged?"

Kala is caught completely off guard. He admits to her that he'd seen the ring right as they'd met. He says "I don't want my destined person to be engaged" with a dismal humor.

As she explains the situation, it all starts making sense, why exactly the universe had chosen her for him. He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop; the universe didn't give him nice things. It had given him a loving mother, and had taken her away. It had given him a loyal brother, who now lay in a hospital bed and might never wake up. It had confused him, that he had a soulmate that was perfect. There was always a catch, and here was hers.

It had seemed faraway when it was just a ring. But now it was a story, and a person. Her fiancé, devoted, handsome and rich, who was adored by her parents, and who she had every intention of marrying.

He tells her so, that this was all for nothing. She starts to say something about no no no, but Wolfgang won't hear it. She isn't about to leave that sort of dream life for him. He's a stranger who, if he ever became more than that, she would be terrified of. "We don't know each other." He says it more than once. Most of him knows it's a lie.

He knows her. He understands how she sees the world, in a way no one else ever could. Wolfgang, who has never been on a third date, who has never seen one of his hookups in the daylight, would be content to stay on this bridge and listen to her speak until the world collapses. He's sure of that.

She's still trying to convince him of something. Maybe to stay with her, be her dirty little secret. Or whisk her away to a far off place and never look back. God, he wants to. But Wolfgang knows how the world works, and it doesn't work like that. Sharp edges surround every doorway. She has enough scars.

"You should stay with him. You have to."

That offends her. Good. Maybe if she hates him this will all be easier. "I am in charge of my life, I can do what I please with it," she retorts.

"No, you can't. If you could, then you would have said no to him. Am I wrong?" Wolfgang keeps his hands firmly in his pockets, where they won't be tempted to pull her in for a final embrace when he leaves.

"Yes! I had no reason to say no-"

He has to leave.

"But you didn't love him- that's not a reason?"

He has to stop talking to her, now. This has to end.

"No it isn't; not here. But if I said to them that I had found you, they would understand. They would know."

He's dangerous, she has no idea. Her parents aren't. He smiles at the insanity of the moment. He hadn't known her this morning.

Despite himself, he says, "I'm sure they would love to meet the man who nearly killed their daughter every day."

She repeats that it wasn't him that hurt her. She must know that he doesn't believe her. And he doesn't. It's _all_ his fault, all of her pain. From when she was a child, he's put her through misery. And now, as if that wasn't enough, he's going to go and take her family away, too.

She finds her footing. "Maybe I have been looking for a reason to call the wedding off," she says, "and this is Ganesha, giving me the best possible reason."

Gods don't give a shit about us, he thinks. If they did, there's no way they'd make you this unlucky.

"Because right now, I'm confused about... everything. But I know I don't want to marry him. I know that to be true," she continues. Without further warning, she's pulling his sleeve up. Wolfgang looks down and is faced with his scar, the one that had made him think of her, just for a few weeks. The sight of it had become so familiar to him. But now he was looking at it for the first time.

It meant something. No matter how he ran, or she ran, they were tied, locked, bound. Maybe not by gods, but by this. If he went back to Germany and grew old with Felix and Felix's children, he would still feel her every mark. His wrinkled skin would break apart and she'd know, still, every time.

"This is true," she says, and kisses him so fiercely he almost loses his footing. It's so searing, so rough he expects it to leave a new scar when they part. He opens his eyes before she does.

He would be content to listen to her forever. If she really is this stubborn about not letting him go, if she's content with the mistake that he is, then there's nothing stopping him. A future, not one where he and Felix collapse boldly in a hail of bullets. A future of listening to Kala, for years and years, maybe forever.

He nods.

 

* * *

 

  
He doesn't expect her parents to accept her choice. But they understand what soulmate means, she tells him. "They worry about you, though," she says, "and all those scars." The two of them know that there won't be many more.

He never meets Rajan, but he sees him from afar many times. The first is right after she ends it wth him. Wolfgang is waiting outside. She comes out, dry eyed, and takes his hand. He brings her in, rests his chin on her head. He can feel her relief, but it's painful nonetheless.

Someone is standing in the doorway. Wolfgang knows who. Rajan looks at him, stony faced. It isn't malicious. He's pleading with him. Wolfgang nods.

_Don't worry. I will._

Rajan sees Wolfgang through windows and across streets, whenever Wolfgang waits for her outside her work. He thinks he's being subtle. Wolfgang feels bad for him, especially when she throws herself into his arms with reckless abandon, when she kisses him with a grin Rajan never even got to see.

He feels bad. But not that bad.

 

* * *

 

 

When he tells her about his night job, he thinks she'll leave him. All at once, he dumps it all on her: what happened to his father, his mother. Sergei, Felix, and the rocks that brought him here. She listens quietly. She doesn't leave.

He thinks on some level that one day she might wake up and realize it's all been a massive waste, and run back to her life. It's what he would do if he was her. She's stronger than he is, though, she proves that every day. Eventually he learns that when she talks to him, she feels the way he does when he listens.

Still, he never can come to terms with her scars. He can't reconcile with her insistence that he had nothing to do with all that pain. He knows she doesn't believe him when he starts telling her that he's forgiven himself.

She holds him in bed one night, and tells him about himself. She tells him about how she kept herself safe as a child because she worried for him. Her damaged boy.

She has a long, thin scar on her ribcage, from his father's wild drunken waving of a switchblade. That one, he remembers, had actually been an accident. He runs his fingers lightly along it.

"We are both damaged, then," he says. He isn't sure if she's asleep, or if the Paris streets are too noisy. She hears him.

"Perhaps."

He kisses her. It will be this, until the world collapses.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ shameful-shameless.tumblr.com


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